The Pentagon finally explains why a small business in Florida was given control over 175 million IP addresses.
The long-dormant IP addresses, which are about 1/25th, or almost 6% the size of the current internet, were handed over as soon as President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021.
Pentagon and Florida's Mysterious Global Resource Systems
Florida's Global Resource Systems LLC (GRS), a private company just outside Fort Lauderdale, announced shortly after Biden's inauguration that they have started managing an undisclosed number of unused IP address spaces owned by the Department of Defense.
According to Washington Post's report on Saturday, Apr. 22, the small company soon got a hold of additional 56 million IP addresses owned by the Pentagon, and then the number increased to 175 million three months later.
This brings GRS to the top of the list of telecommunications giants who control the internet, beating the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and China Telecom.
What baffles experts in the field is that the GRS was only founded in September 2020, and never had any publicly reported federal contracts or a public-facing website.
Moreover, GRS's announcement about managing Pentagon's IP addresses was only made through the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) - a messaging system that gives Internet companies instructions on how to route traffic throughout the world.
The news shocked cybersecurity experts, with some speculating that the Pentagon may be using the announcement to draw hackers, or looking to set up a dedicated infrastructure to scour traffic for suspect activity.
"As to why the DoD would have done that I'm a little mystified, same as you," said Paul Vixie, an internet pioneer who designed the Domain Name System (DNS) protocol and procedure.
Pentagon's Response
Pentagon's Defense Digital Service (DDS), the government agency's elite unit that reports directly to the secretary of defense, holds the key as to explain the puzzling GRS entrance in the cybersecurity field.
Created in 2015, the "SWAT team of nerds" was tasked to solve emergency problems for the Department of Defense (DoD) as well as conducting experimental work to make big technological leaps for the military.
DDS's director Brett Goldstein explained that his unit gave GRS the authority to publicize the IP addresses owned by the Pentagon, AP reported on Apr. 24.
"This pilot will assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space," said Goldstein. "DoD IP address space," Goldstein said. "Additionally, this pilot may identify potential vulnerabilities."
He added that the "pilot effort" is one of the many projects of the DoD that focuses on continually improving the U.S.'s cyber posture and defense in response to advanced persistent threats.
Pentagon's most recent decision to involve a mysterious company to manage the valuable virtual real estate is just one of the many perplexing decisions the Defense Department had made.
In 2016, the Defense Department issued an open challenge to "Hack the Pentagon" to identify vulnerabilities in the department's security.
The challenge managed to gather hundreds of vulnerabilities from more than 250 participants, one of which is a teenager who has just graduated from high school.
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Written by Leigh Mercer
